With all the changes wrought by COVID-19, many practices have put MIPS issues on the back burner. In March, CMS even changed the rules to allow practices to skip MIPS reporting for the 2019 reporting year without penalty. But the 2020 reporting year is underway, and there are some steps medical practices subject to MIPS need to consider. (While it is true that until now, MIPS penalties have been small and bonuses disappointing, going forward there is a good deal more at stake. I will get to that in a later post.)

Registration Deadline:

There are six different authorized methods to collect and submit quality measures, depending on the size of the practice. For groups or virtual groups, or some APMs, two of these have a registration deadline coming up on June 30. If you plan to submit your data using the CMS Web Interface, and/or want one of your quality measures to be the CAHPS survey (Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems), you can register by:

• Signing into QPP;
• Going to the Manage Access page; and
• Clicking “Edit Registration” by 8:00 p.m. EDT on June 30, 2020.

If you registered with the CMS Web Interface for the 2019 reporting period, your registration will automatically be renewed unless you cancel. Some ACOs do not need to register for either the Web Interface or the CAHPS. See the CMS bulletin for details.

( As a reminder, the other 4 reporting methods you may elect to use are:
• Electronic Clinical Quality Measures (eCQMs) – collected directly from a certified EHR
• MIPS CQMs (formerly “Registry measures”)
• Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) Measures – usually for very specialized clinicians
• Medicare Part B claims measures – CMS will calculate your score based on submitted claims )

Proposed Measures Submission Deadlines:

Also, each year, CMS encourages clinicians to propose new measures for consideration in future years. In the quality category, CMS is looking for specific measures that help measure or quantify healthcare processes, outcomes, and patient perceptions that go with being able to give high-quality healthcare. The deadline for these submissions is also June 30th. Submissions are also requested in the Promoting Interoperability and Improvement Activities categories, these due by July 1.

For more detail on the registration requirements or on submission of measures, check out the CMS weekly bulletin on this subject: https://great-practices.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/CMS_weekly_Bulletin_6_19_20.pdf. This also includes many useful links.